Little Cup Co-Leader

There's not a lot to say about these as there hasn't been much change since last month. Usual comment about how Abra and Aipom shouldn't be so high (They've even gone up since last month)

This is one thing that does shock me

| 62 | Natu | 558 | 2.455% | 451 | 2.393% |

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Like seriously guys, use Natu more! Beats all fighters easily except Scraggy (who can't switch into Natu) aswell as hard walling most Grass types. Unfortunately Drilbur can still set up rocks 'cos of Mould Breaker, but it does a good job overall at preventing hazards.

Life Orb Drilbur appears to have become more common than Eviolite (Eviolite usage appears to be higher, but subtracting Mold Breaker usage gives the real Sand Rush stats). This is an interesting shift for Sand teams- instead of going for a full sweep via Eviolite SD, picking off a Pokemon here and there with LO seems to be the new plan. The higher usages of Snover and Choice Scarf Porygon have pretty much forced this, as people have started to realize that pulling off full sweeps with Sand teams is pretty much impossible. Sandshrew usage has also fallen off a cliff these past few months- as I mentioned in a post in the Tiering Megathread, double rush is simply not viable anymore due to how difficult it is to deal with Snover with only three Pokemon.

Rapid Spin Drilbur is becoming increasingly common, especially on LO Sand Rush sets. Residual damage has always been a problem for Sand teams, which have historically lacked a spinner. RS Drilbur is definitely a welcome addition so that switching doesn't become even more difficult for a Sand team. Mold Breaker Drilbur on balance teams has also been fantastic- it's essentially a more fragile version of Staryu that hits harder and can set up Stealth Rock. While Staryu is usually a better choice, Drilbur is definitely the #2 spinner and works fantastically with certain Pokemon. Murkrow, for one, likes Drilbur better than Staryu, as having a way to get rid of Chinchou, an Electric immunity, and Stealth Rock is just fantastic.

Chinchou has really stayed behind the times here. The most common set still appears to be some form of an Eviolite bulky attacker, which dates back to before the unbannings of Gligar, Murkrow, and Misdreavus. The truth is, a bulky attacker set no longer outputs enough damage or has enough bulk to merit usage. It isn't bulky enough to tank Brave Birds from Murkrow and not strong enough to break through something as common as Misdreavus. RestTalk is sitting at a lowly 30% usage, when it is pretty much the only viable Chinchou set remaining (Choice Scarf is alright, but there are better options). Even then, Porygon does pretty much everything RestTalk Chinchou does, and doesn't have to deal with the unreliability of Sleep Talk. Will Chinchou ever be as good as it was when it reached #3 in usage? Probably not this generation, but I can dream :(

There's a lot of questionable things out there- Abra, Aipom, Ice Punch Scraggy (hell the most common EV spread on Scraggy isn't even correct)- but this is ladder, and there's really no point in complaining about it. At least we got 11k battles again- keep it up!

when 90% of matches are started with mienfoo, missy, hippo, normal type fake out leads just don't work. Sure, against misdreavus Meowth can use Bite, but people will predict that and go to timburr/mienfoo/scraggy/you name it